A YouTube video compiles interviews with Rupert Murdoch, Bob Iger, Sumner Redstone, Les Moonves and others crowing about the huge profits they have already made — and WILL make — from TV shows streamed on the Internet, iTunes, etc. (Thanks to Craig Mazin for the heads-up!)
Did you see this article?:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/11/business/strike.php
It says that movie deals against the gross are killing profits, because they have to be payed even on films that don’t make their costs back. Very interesting stuff about how the studios have dug themselves into a hole.
As far as the DVD issue, doesn’t it seem that many current series are set up to sell DVDs? I mean, you like LOST or HEROES or 24 but miss a few episodes, you almost have to get the DVD to catch up.
Lee, while I support you and the WGA 100%, I feel compelled to point out the double-edged nature of this clip:
The studios have obviously done the projections and determined that a strike will cost them $X and giving in to the WGA’s demands–strike that, make it, paying WGA members what they are rightfully owed–will cost the studios $Y. Thus, the studios will happily endure a strike as long as $X is less than $Y. But because $Y is a percentage, the more the studios make, the larger $Y is. And the larger $Y is, the harder it will be to get $X to equal or exceed $Y.
To put it another way, by holding out back in ’88, do you think the studios have saved themselves more than $500 million (the cost of the strike) in residual payments over the course of the last 19 years?
Graham,
>”you like LOST or HEROES or 24 but miss a few episodes, you almost have to get the DVD to catch up.”
You could also catch up by watching the episodes–with advertising–on the studio/network’s website, which is the other big issue in this dispute.